Invention

Kids have been singing about the Bananaphone
since Raffi released a song and album by the same name in 1994. Fast
forward 20 years, and Raffi’s silly song doesn’t seem so silly. Eric
Rosenbaum and Jay Silver, two very smart and creative guys with MIT
degrees, have invented MaKey MaKey, an invention kit that turns everyday
objects into computer keyboards or touchpads. Move over Bananaphone,
MaKey MaKey can turn bananas into a piano.

Inventors, get your minds in gear to apply NASA's Mindshift technology
to your next invention. NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration) has partnered with Edison Nation to identify the best consumer inventions or adaptations of products to use with its powerful mind control tool,
Mindshift.

Do male athletes in Australia wear sports bras? Or are things not like they seem and has a new wearable technology reared its most innovative head? Read on for details about this exciting breakthrough in athletic sportswear.

Color blindness affects nearly 8 percent of men and .5 percent of
women; some people don't even know they have it. Most color blindness is inherited, although there are several
diseases and certain traumas that can cause it. There is no cure or
permanent correction of the condition currently available, but after 10
years of development, a company called EnChroma offers correction for the most common type, red-green color blindness.

"Cats are the most viral thing on the Internet after sex," Gilad Gelfand
told Israeli newspaper Haaretz, as he explained how Cat2See, his remote
cat play-watch-feed invention, would fit into the booming cat watching
and sharing arena. Cat2See, indeed, has its similarities to existing
cat watching apps, but it has its differences too. What I like about it
most is its R2D2-looking robotic fishing rod holder!

No house or apartment seems to have enough electrical outlets for all
the gadgets we have. Sure, we can plug in power strips to stretch the
current, but there's one gadget that needs at least a semi-permanent
home in your wall outlets - the night light. A new company called Snap
Power invented a brilliant way to free your outlets for other use and
still have your safety lights when it's dark in your rooms - with
SnapRays Guide Lights, you just 'plug and play' them.

Reflective lights and clothing let bicyclists be seen at night, but
one invention, created by students at California State University Long
Beach, went a few steps further.... They created VibriSee, cat-like
whiskers for your bike that make the bike and the biker more visible in
daylight as well as at night. And though the whiskers may look like a
cat's, their biomimetic functions are actually more like peacocks,
rodents, octopuses, and ctenophores.

Awkward situations are well, awkward. And as much as we'd like to
envision turning and running away at full speed when faced with one
(that can't just be mine), dealing with these things in the real world
requires more tact. But there's no rule that says you have to do the
mature thing and tackle awkward head on, not when a new accessory gives
you the perfect out.

While going back into time might be pure fantasy, traveling between five and eight years into the future might just prove to be a reality. Algorithims provide the venue according to one Iranian scientist. Read on for some strange and questionable details.

Ever wonder what would happen if a Lite Brite and a lonely LEGO Duplo
block got crazy one night, had a few juice boxes, and played Twister?
Let’s just say Duplo wasn’t lonely anymore, and they created the coolest
block ever. That’s what Light Stax
look like to me: a glowing, stackable, love child. Light Stax are LED
building blocks that light up when attached to their power generating
base. And they look awesome.

It's a strange name for a beach towel come travel bag, but that's what it is, the "PTATT"
(Personal Travel and Adventure Tracking Towel). But don't hold the name
against it, it's actually a pretty clever invention. It's been awarded
two patents, so far, and it just won the People's Choice Best Invention
Award at the 2014 South Florida Inventor's Society Expo in West Palm
Beach. So, what is the PTATT and what does it do?

Get your purse, backpack, or briefcase packed up -- it's time to glow! The Kangaroo Light is a fun, flexible, and portable light that you can carry around to illuminate the depths of your life -- and other places. It can be a night light in the hotel on a business trip, or a bit of mood lighting for that spontaneous evening picnic with your favorite guy or gal.

Kids love stairs. I don’t have scientific facts to back this up, just
memories of childhood. As a kid, my brother and I would slide down our
carpeted stairs on our bottoms. Then that became boring and we progressed to the ultimate, fear
inducing thrill of going down head first, our heads bobbling and our
teeth chattering. How did we not break our necks or bite off our
tongues? Trisha Cleveland has come up with an alternative to bumpy,
potentially unsafe rides down the stairs. SlideRider turns a staircase into an indoor slide.

All you have to do is look at Instagram to recognize that everyone's a foodie these days, and that makes it harder for industry professionals to impress the general public with unique creations. But that doesn't mean they won't try, and sometimes their creations are intriguing and even frightening.

Barker's not just any dog; he belongs to Andy Storms, a Seattle
softgoods designer and outdoorsman, who loves to hike and camp with his
best pal. Barker's a tough dog; he hikes trails with Andy and he can
get down and dirty with the best of them, but when night time comes, he likes to
be cuddly and warm at the bottom of Andy's sleeping bag. Problem is
that while Barker stays warm, Andy's feet freeze.